Wednesday, November 29, 2006

My Wednesday Fun

I had quite a long day today... Wake up before my intended time again, despite my lack of sleep the day before... But it turns out quite alright... My mom was still home so she cook me some noodle with the left over stock soup and noodle :)

My destination today is MBK Mall, to do a bit of shopping for my friendS (yeah with a capital S since I actually bought stuff for three persons). I end up spending about four thousand baht on the DVDs/CDs with only 200 baht of that belongs to my goods 'Murder on Orient Express'. The majorities of my acquisition belongs to CA, who made me slight worried as he has not reply his email for quite a few days now. I hope he will not doing a disappearing act on me or else I will end up with a big lost on my hand.

Other than that I got to spend some fun time talking with my regular game shops and even help out a bit with my in depth knowledge about games :)

Today I spend quite a lot of money on different food... There is a Egyptian food booth in the food court here in that sell slice chickens in tortiya (I don't remember the name right but it is quite good). Then I went to Pizza Hut to try out their smoked salmon pizza, which turns out to be just so so for the 149 price tag for the small one which didn't even feel full to me, I don't think I will have it again... The money will be better spent saving up for good Salmon Sashimi :d My mom said earlier that she will not cook tonight so I went to have a chicken on rice at a Japanese restaurant. Then after I finally arrive at Central Ladpraw after the grusome two hours 20 minutes on the road back from MBK Mall, I decided to went to Swensen's to also try out their new menu :P

So today I had both Pizza and Ice Cream, neither were quite fulfilling my appetite but it was quite fun day nonetheless :P

Friday, November 24, 2006

Pried My Wallet Open

My future is on hold again... Well.. not my life pre se but rather my future. I am waiting for the job leads from my younger bro to came through so I can make plans and so on. That has not happen yet so it became a waiting game... So I will post about something more pleasant that happen recently.

The shopping mall near by house is having a big sales again. Since many of my briefs have hanging treads and became worn off, I decided that it is time to buy some and bought them I did.

I ended up bough one polo shirt, one shirt (deep red color, no less), 3 briefs, 3 bikini briefs and 2 tenga brief (nylon and lycra mix fabric, for special occasions to come,tee hee), all Jockey brand. I also end up bought a backpack as well. I like the look and style of this one, it has three compartment, sturdy padded back support and a small pocket for mp3 player on the left side strap.

So in the end I spend quite a lot of money than usual for all these, but I surely need all of them and I am wearing one of those items right now, wanna guess which one? ;)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Day Two & Three (I am getting lazy :p)

I woke up before alarm again... I hate when it happen... Anyhow the breakfast was ok, typical hotel buffet breakfast comprise with the usual egg dishes and local breakfast meals. Then we are off to the Royal Flora Expo.

It was quite nice, abide hot and sunny weather with no cloud in the sky. I was cautioned enough to push extra SPF moisturizer on my face (but neglected my arms -*-, which results in reddish color the next day with slight sore in the tender wrinkle area). My intension was to take as many picture of beautiful and interesting things in the Expo as much as could for my mom. And I seems to did just that with total of 345 photos (there would be more if I have the time) just in the expo alone. We enter the Expo around 10am and the appointed time was 2pm. Toward the end of the walk my digital camera ran out of power and I have to use my w810i to take photo instead. It surely could take good photo ;)

The highlight was, of cause, can be seen here :P

There was also a little excitement going on. You see I was late to return to the bus that it had took off without me :p Somehow the tour guide miscount me so they have to return to pick me up. All this happen while I was walking toward to exit which lined with shops that sells flowers and souvenirs :p In the end I have to run quite a distance to the parking lot to board the bus. And then we are off to Baan Tawai

Click here to download the photos (55Mb)

Baan Tawai is a famous wood products market of Chaing Mai. It seems that most, if not all, of the wood products there are made with teak wood. I saw some very nice crafts and one has very delicate wood craving panel. All can be seen by download below.

Click here to download the photos

The day ended with a party, but I am only there for the food and spend 30min in the near by shopping mall and an hour in the internet cafe opposite from the hotel that the event was held :P

Last day was quite uneventful... but nonetheless interesting. After breakfast we went to PraSingha Temple, one of the famous and sacred temple of Chaing Mai

Click here to download the photos

And next we went to Chaing Mai Cultural Center which we learn the history of Chaing Mai

Then we are off to lunch and visit a souvenirs market. Since there were sometime left before going to the airport, we stop at the silver factory for the last bit of shopping. I was tempted to buy some ring but most are too small for fingers, also the design was not to my liking.

Then we are of to the airport. It was my first times at Chaing Mai airport, the check-ins was without a hitch and since I did not felt like browsing the shops I went to the gate quite early. The flight was delayed by about 30 minutes but it was a short flight anyhow. After about an hour in the air we arrive at Suwannapume airport.

I must say that the airport did not impress me at all. The interior was rather dark, as if the brightness was at 50% of what it should be. Perhaps this is because of the glass panel as the wall that would make it bright during the day, but did they not think of how it would look in the night? The column and ceiling were not painted and were left in cement color, they also have metal pipe running through them along the walkway. I understand that it is the 'modern' design but it does not look good nor Thais at all. It took a while to walk to the luggage belt area (four floor escalator no less). And it took about 20-30 minutes before the first luggage arrive, since it would took awhile to unload them from the plane into the truck and came to the area...

And then we have to wait for about 20 minutes for the bus back to the office as there seems to be a miscommunication of the rendezvous point. However it took only about an hour on two highways back to the office which is about 10 minutes away from my house :)

Monday, November 13, 2006

Chaing Mai Trip, Day One & Two: BKK->Chaing Mai; Doi Suthep, CM Zoo, Khantoke Dinner

The trip began by coach bus from the office to Hua Lumpong, the Grand Central train station of Thailand. I think it was my first times ever in that place.

It does looks slightly modern with the terrace style shops on both side and the A/C waiting area. At around 18:00 we boarded the train to Chaing Mai. The ride itself was, in all honesty, quite horrendous. Eventhough we got the sleeping carriege, the A/C was very cold. After the train staff set up the sheets, and blankets and pillows, I went up to sleep on the upper bunk. Which is a big mistake since the cold air from the A/C was blown in just above the curtain rails and directly into my head. To make the matter worse, a card game just happen to be played, quite loudly from time to time, opposite from my bunk. After fell asleep and woke up for 3 hours, I felt wide awake and decided that I had enough of the chill and went down to look for empty lower bunk to settle myself in. The first one I tried, has this exhaust fume smell coming in so often as well as the loud engine noise, so I have to switch to another one. I read the book I brought with me to kill times before went back to sleep. Morning came and it wasn't until around 9am that we finally arrive in Chaing Mai and not before I have the endure a lousy sandwich which comprise with only onion, tomato and lettuce as well as boil rice with chicken.

According to the schedule I printed out from the office, we were suppose to began our tour right away but then, much to my delight, we went to our hotel first to freshen up before began our sightseeing of Chaing Mai.

We went to a Chinese restuarant to have Lunch first, it was quite ok although I later heard from other people that it was one of the worst place to eat in CM :P

Then we headed out to Doi Suthep which is one of the most important temple and signature location of Chaing Mai. I think this is my second times there although I didn't recall most of the places... They let us spend sometime there and I took quite several photos as well. The place do looks peaceful although packed with tourists.

Click here for my photos of Doi Suthep temple

Adter Doi Suthep we headed back to Chaing Mai Zoo, with the highlight of seeing the Pandas from China. My impression of Chaing Mai Zee is that it seems... unfinish somehow... And perhaps the standard might not be up to par in some presentation. Anyhow, the pandas is now quite huge and perhaps rather lazy :P One was sleeping on the tree while another is eating bamboo from a handler behinds the bars. They has kept cool by the big fan that also spraying water mist to cool down the surrounding. Some of the photo of the pandas were not clear because the camera flash was banned.

Click here for Chaing Zoo's photo

When we headed back to our hotel from the Zoo the tour guide began to handed out the... I suppose it could be call a decorative cloth to be place over the shoulder which is a local tradition of Northern Thais or in local tongue we called "Larnna". The cloth is meant to be use in for the Khantoke Dinner which is the traditional 'Lanna dinner' serve in the occasion of foreign visitors by the head of the city. For men they have selections of three colors, blue green and light tan. I wants the blue one but it was ran out so I have to wait till later to get one from other bus. After we finish freshen up and dress up (for some, not me :P) at the hotel, we headed out to old Chaing Mai cultural Center for the dinner.

The dinner began with the reception which has a lot of locals food to choose from and tried. The idea was to really eat up before the main events since real Khantoke food are quite minimal and it would be during the show. So there will be less times to eat.

After the show was over we went back to the hotel, some of the guys in our group talked about went out to see the night life of CM but I was very tired, plus I have no desired for the straight night life anyhow :P

Saturday, November 11, 2006

A Quick One for the Boys

I just got back from the trip :) It was quite fun and tired at the same time... I guess I am not used to all day activities. However I want to do a quick upload for you guys (several now :D). The picture is taken in the Moroccan garden in the Royal Flora Expo.

I wondered if this is the Moroccan Boy that Paul was talking about :P

He is working in the section that seems to replicate the Moroccan market, all of the goods seems genuine Moroccan.

I will post my Chaing Mai trip experience tomorrow :) I had taken about 650 pictures, several from my phone no less as my digital camera ran out of battery during the Flora Expo. With the total space of 827Mbs, I won't upload them one by one but I will do so by locations and upload the whole chuck as zip on sendspace.com

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Northern Expenditure

My company has set up a friendship tour for the occasion of company merger (actually I would called it a take over, in which mine has been taken over :P). We will be heading to Chaing Mai for 4 days starting this Wednesday.

At first I was not going to sign up for this trip thinking that there will be "friendship activities" that required mandatory participation, but when I saw that it's going be a real touring trip and we will actually came back to BKK by plane (we will be there by train), I am sold :)

So I spend about 30 minutes packing my clothes and digital camera. It will only be about four days so I will only bring the small trolley I got from the Japan trip, along with my trusty backpack (which started to torn on the top :~( ) for the necessities: such as comic books and other stuff.

This will be my second trip to Chaing Mai, my first trip was with my family years ago... Don't remember much about that trip anymore though...

We will be visiting the... World plants exhibition (roughly translated from the Thai name), some safari park too I think...

Let's just say there will be many photos to upload once I got back :)

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Another ComMarts Affairs

Commart Thailand started out as a innovation expo (if I remember it correctly...) but it gradually became sales event instead. Most of the major brands in IT industry will came to sales their goods with promotions and discounts. As it became a quarterly event, the novelty seems to diminish a bit but it is always very crowded.

This times I went to look for a good mouse to replace my old one. My intended budget of estimated 500s baht got blown away when I walk pass Acrox booth and found this mouse.

It is a laser mouse, which means it can scroll faster than normal optical mouse as it was intended for gaming purpose and with the laser sensor it can be use on any surface even on glass panel (I guess for posh tech geek who use computer on glass table :P)

Click on the photo to look at the mouse's homepage.







After walking around the area several times, I walk into the main hall which house most the major brands from Mac to Lenovo. As I expected, the main focus of this event is still on notebooks. I did not really look into them though... Since I still do not need to buy any just yet, plus Intel will release their quad-core CPU this week. That should effect the computer price (at least on the desktop front) quite a bit.

However, my eye fall on this item and I just have to take a closer look.


Try save the picture on your computer and flip it upside down and tell me what you see ;)

It is a gel based wrist supporter. I only saw a green one at first and I was hesitated about getting one, but after I looks behind it and I saw the blue one I just think what the heck I just need to splurge myself a bit (My favorite color is blue :D).

I was also sorely tempted by the 190 baht USB bluetooth adapter. But I figured that I might not use it that much. Plus I prefer to scroll in the phone memory with explorer rather than using the phone menu, some might not show up by using the phone menu alone.

Epilogue: I left my home around 11am and must have arrive at Queen Sirikit Convention Center no later than 20 minutes later using the subway, but when I left I look at the clock and it 3pm already!! I seems to easily lost tracks of time when I am around IT stuff...